


With Friends Like These

by Kainosite



Category: Political RPF - UK 20th-21st c.
Genre: Coalition, Conservative Backbench Circle Jerk Society, Dubious Consent, First Time, Forced Prostitution, M/M, Workplace Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-06 09:59:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3130403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kainosite/pseuds/Kainosite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of Cameron's EU referendum pledge, his backbenchers decide to encourage him in his newfound Euroscepticism by giving him David Nuttall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Friends Like These

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for **_PETER BONE_** and references to dub-con.

“Mrs. Bone is very pleased with you.”

David eyed the little group of beaming Eurosceptics warily. He’d heard them behind him at PMQs, cheering instead of booing him for once. It made for a refreshing change, but he couldn’t help wondering how long it would last.

“So are we,” Peter Bone went on. “It’s good to know that at long last you’re taking our concerns seriously.”

Davies nodded vigorously, delight shining out all over his round, stupid face, and Rees-Mogg clapped David companionably on the shoulder.

“A splendid speech, Prime Minister! I felt the spirit of Cicero moving through you.”

“Lady Thatcher couldn’t have done better,” said Chope. “It was the greatest speech I’ve heard from a British Prime minister in thirty years! Those grubby Eurocrats in Brussels will be shaking in their boots.”

“It will be well-received in Kettering,” added Hollobone.

Bone smiled. In some vague and ill-defined way David felt there was something not quite right about the smile, as if it used the wrong cheek muscles or it involved too many teeth.

“We’d like to offer you a little token of our appreciation,” he said, and hauled David Nuttall to the front of the group. There was something wrong with Nuttall’s smile as well. It looked as though it had been photoshopped onto his face, which apart from the smile was pale and miserable. Perhaps this was because of the way Bone’s fingers were digging into his elbow.

“We know that by standing up for Britain in the way you have, you may have somewhat soured the relationship between yourself and Mr. Clegg,” said Rees-Mogg. “Of course we don’t _approve_ , but under the circumstances it seemed only fair that in whatever small way we could we should strive to make up the difference. That is to say, that one of us should–” Something in David’s increasingly baffled expression caused him to abruptly turn crimson and stop talking. He ducked his head, gripped by a sudden need to adjust his cufflinks, and Hollobone picked up where he left off.

“So we talked it over, and, well,” he shrugged and cast a critical eye over their group. “We’re not much to look at, most of us. But there’s David.” 

David looked around the small circle. It was certainly true that none of them were likely to join him on the cover of _GQ_ : Rees-Mogg with his effete mannerisms and his ridiculous double-breasted suits, Chope with his bluster and his ruddy, weathered face like a farmer’s, Davies with his corpulent bulk and his appalling haircut, Bone with that disturbing grin and the bizarre aureole of hair around the shiny dome of his skull, Hollobone with his giant ears and a face like a baboon. And then there was Nuttall– slender, handsome, not a hair out of place. On first appearance one might mistake him for someone actually worth speaking to, although thirty seconds of conversation with him would disabuse anyone of _that_ notion.

“What exactly are you suggesting?” David asked, although he had a horrible suspicion he already knew. But they couldn’t really be proposing what he thought they were proposing, could they? It was sordid even by their low standards, and they were the biggest homophobes in his party. Surely they wouldn’t sacrifice one of their own to David’s wicked homosexual agenda just to spite the Lib Dems? There had to be some other explanation for Rees-Mogg’s blush.

As had happened so often over the brief course of David’s premiership, Peter Bone dashed all his hopes.

“David here has agreed to be your paramour. Haven’t you, David?”

Nuttall gave a feeble nod. “I’m not gay! But, um, if this– If this is what we have to do to free Britain from the um, the choking grip of Brussels, then, um, I’m at your disposal, Prime Minister.”

Nuttall was still smiling, but his eyes were those of a trapped animal. He was a better substitute for Nick than they knew. It was time and past that David told them to fuck off – Nuttall clearly wasn’t willing and even if he had been David would rather sleep with a tuberculous badger – but he couldn’t think where to begin. The surreal proposition had left him feeling a bit lightheaded. Perhaps Nuttall felt the same, for he groped blindly behind him with the arm that wasn’t being held captive by Bone. Davies found his hand and squeezed it tightly.

“David is so brilliant at everything,” Davies said, with a forced grin of his own. Nuttall’s misery seemed to be infectious. “He’ll be better than Clegg ever was, you’ll see! You’ll never want to sleep with a Europhile again.”

“Or a Liberal,” agreed Bone. “You _will_ take us up on our offer, won’t you, Prime Minister?” Nuttall flinched as Bone tightened his grip on his arm and the grin slipped from Davies’ face completely.

It was on the tip of David’s tongue to tell Bone where he could shove his offer, but the barely concealed terror in Nuttall’s eyes gave him pause. He might not be a brilliant party manager, but he’d been a politician long enough to recognize leverage when he saw it. A willing whore would be useless to him, but an unwilling sacrifice was another matter.

If he refused the offer it would save him from having anything further to do with these reprobates and it would no doubt win him Nuttall’s deepest gratitude, but the gratitude of a politician was a substance with a notoriously short shelf life. If he spared Nuttall now, whatever goodwill the gesture of mercy engendered would surely evaporate by the time the next critical vote rolled around. Whereas, if he took them up on their offer and left that mercy conditional on Nuttall’s future cooperation... Or better yet, he could claim him, spare him, and then send him back to spy on his so-called friends. He needed intelligence more than he needed one reliable vote, and he had here the recipe for a perfect double agent.

The Whips’ Office would be in awe. It would be the end of George Young’s condescending lectures on glad-handing the backbenchers, the end of his own ministers whispering behind their hands when they saw him in the corridors. They could finally get a grip on the rebellions and wipe that incredulous smirk off Ed Miliband’s face. God, imagine facing down Labour with a united party behind him, not just this week but every week. What a burden would be lifted from his shoulders, if he only had to fret about the economy and the Liberal Democrats instead of the likes of Nuttall and Bone.

“You know, I think I shall,” he said, and held out his hand.

Bone shoved Nuttall towards him. Nuttall shot a panicked glance over his shoulder, but the others stood there like lumps of wood, mute and unyielding. Rees-Mogg couldn’t meet his eyes and Davies had a look on his face like he was passing a kidney stone, but no one said a word. After a moment Nuttall seemed to accept that no rescue was forthcoming and reluctantly stepped forward to lay a limp hand in David’s. David put an arm around his shoulders – the poor man was actually trembling – and steered him gently down the corridor.

“You won’t hurt him, will you?” Davies called after them in a small voice.

 _“Phil!”_ someone hissed, and Nuttall cringed, his shoulders hunching beneath David’s hand. Christ, what did they take him for? What the hell had David ever done to any of them? He wasn’t the one who asked a question every week speculating about _Peter Bone’s_ death. And the way Nuttall was shaking... It was awful, almost enough to make David call the whole thing off. But it occurred to him that Bone must have something on Nuttall to make him agree to this sick proposal in the first place. He might not thank David for turning it down, not if it meant Bone would send him on some other twisted assignment.

David was Nuttall’s leader too, much as it might pain both of them to admit it. He had a responsibility.

He stopped and turned back to the little clump of Eurosceptics. They were all watching him, Davies with the brittle defiance of someone who has let accidentally let slip some embarrassing opinion and now finds himself compelled to defend it, the others with a sort of predatory speculation. Affronted though he was by the question, David began to feel a slight sympathy towards Davies. There was not, in any of those other faces, a trace of concern for their erstwhile friend.

“We may not always agree on policy, but after eight years I should think you’d know me better than that. It’s not the sort of thing I do,” he said firmly. Davies gave an uncertain little nod and Bone smiled his unsettling smile.

“Of _course_ not, Prime Minister.”

“He will come to no harm _through me_ ,” David added pointedly.

Davies glanced between them.

“But–”

A hand clasped David’s.

“I’ll be all right, Phil,” Nuttall said, coming up beside him and giving David’s fingers a gentle squeeze. “It’s, um, it’s like the referendum. He gave us his word.”

“Notwithstanding certain previous pledges on that subject,” Bone said with a sour little laugh. How quickly the velvet gloves came off when he couldn’t have his own way, thought David. And what an odious reptile he was, if Nuttall finding the courage to put a brave face on his appalling situation was enough in itself to sour his mood.

Nuttall looked up at David and smiled faintly. His eyes were a lucent Tory blue, the color of an autumn sky on a clear day, and a genuine smile lit up that ascetic face and transformed it into something much more appealing. Rather too late, it occurred to David that sidestepping Bone’s honey trap might prove more difficult than he’d anticipated.

“I trust you,” Nuttall said.

“Do you really?” David asked, a little adrift in the depthless blue of Nuttall’s eyes. If so, it would be the first time in this Parliament. Unbidden, the memory of an earlier conversation superimposed itself on this one: a bright smile, grey eyes meeting his, a softer hand taking up his own, words spoken in pleasant, rounded RP in place of Nuttall’s nasal Yorkshire drawl– “But I trust you, David!”

Yet less than three years later here he was, being rewarded by a gang of hardline Eurosceptics for promising them an in-out referendum. And planning to betray his reward in turn. Not that Nuttall’s intentions were so pure – no doubt Bone was just as eager to have a spy inside Number 10 as David was to have one on the Conservative backbenches – but all the favor trading and backstabbing and espionage and counter-espionage felt so grubby, suddenly. Had he really come into politics for this? Did he really want to spend the rest of his premiership blackmailing one of his own MPs with what, when one boiled it down to the bare essentials, amounted to a rape threat?

He’d had such hopes, when he formed this government. For the country, for the coalition, for his party, for himself. The past few years had been an education in the limits of the Prime Minister’s power. It seemed now that he would be not be able to save any of them, no small thanks to the man who stood beside him, whose rebellion over the EU referendum e-petition had started the whole stupid Europe ball rolling in the first place and taught the backbenchers how much fun it was to defy the whips. Now the party appeared fractious and divided, the coalition was fragmenting, there were questions about David’s leadership, and the next election would be fought on the 2010 boundaries.

He had every reason to hate Nuttall. He shouldn’t care about the blackmail. The man’s own friends were prepared to sacrifice him for their political advantage, why the hell should David treat him any better? The Government needed the intelligence to make up for all the damage Nuttall and his chums had done with their sodding rebellions. _David_ needed it to make his damn party stop sniggering at him behind his back and the Labour frontbench stop mocking him to his face.

But Nuttall had sky-blue eyes and he had taken David at his word. There weren’t too many people willing to do that anymore. Certainly not Nick, not after this.

If David was damned anyway, it might as well be for decency as anything else.

“Let’s find somewhere to talk in private,” he said. “Everything will be all right, I promise.”

“I don’t doubt it,” said Nuttall.

And looking at his smile David thought that of all his political misjudgments, the one he was making now might be the one he would regret the least.


End file.
